She has worked on the restoration of the one of a kind Maillardet Automaton at the Franklin Institute, and worked on vintage Apollo flight hardware at the Smithsonian National Air and SpaceMuseum. Fran's work on reverse engineering components in the Apollo Saturn V LVDC computer got her an article in Popular Science Magazine in 2014.

Fran has also been interviewed for the Lena Dunham blog, The Lenny Letter, and had a cover story in Tone Report in 2016, as well as a feature in She Shreds Magazine in 2015.

Fran's work has been featured on Hackaday 21 times since 2012.

We'll be discussing all types of technologies that aren't being used in the modern world anymore.

Fran BlancheIt's a chemical layering process. Essentially every EL display is a low value capacitor, so you're layering dielectric between two conductors with some phoshor in there to engergize.

Dan MaloneyI'd actually like to learn about the design decisions that resulted in those displays. Why such a complicated device? I get that Nixies would be no bueno on a rocket, but didn't they have other technologies?

Fran BlancheAlso for the DSKY there were so many individual digits that space dictated something like a CRT screen, and the EL panel took up far less room.

BenchoffAnd you're still going with a silkscreen rig and ITO glass to fabricate these?

Dan MaloneyGotcha. The constraints they worked under just fascinate me - a few grams here, a few milliwatts there; it all mattered.

Fran BlancheITO is the way to go nowadays, and silk screening is still the way it is done. Heat curing is essential, so there is a lot of steps in producing any one single panel.

dackdelcorrect me if im wrong. most EE live for a few grams, miliwatts and good coffee. i have a friend who does it and its facinating how obessed you can get.

BenchoffHey, we're almost at this question, so how about this: "can you explain the proces you had in mind to make the dsky display segments?"

Fran BlancheIronically the hard thing to copy in the original displays is the dark metallic face, because the original conductors were not fully transparent, rather deposited metalic layers. I think that flown DSKY displays used a form of deposited nickel for the front conductor, giving it that golden look.

Fran BlancheThe whole display is made in a single panel, so individual segements are all part of the whole.